Woman Fights Off Attacker in Brookland

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A man equipped with a knife and handcuffs attacked a woman in northeast D.C. Wednesday afternoon.

The woman was attacked in a parking lot near a Metro station, Catholic University and a Comcast building in Brookland at about 2:45 p.m. As she got into her SUV the 29-year-old victim was approached from behind by a man who put a knife to her throat.

“I was very scared but I knew that it was my life,” she said. “It was life or death.”

The man had handcuffs in the front of his pants, and inside the SUV, he reached for them, but he dropped the knife.

“When he dropped the knife, I picked the knife up, and we began to struggle,” she said. “I knew it was time to fight.”

They fell out of the SUV onto the pavement and the victim tossed the knife down the street. The man grabbed her around the neck and she went limp and he let go.

At that point, a car passed and the woman tried to get in.

“He tried to speed off because he didn’t know if the man had a gun, he didn’t know what to do, so he started driving and I jumped through his window while he was driving along and held on until we got about a block away,” she said. “I was hanging out of his window until we got a block away until he felt that it was safe enough to let me in to his car.”

That man drove the woman to police. Investigators hope surveillance video may have filmed the attack.

“He would not let me go, he wouldn’t look in my purse, he didn’t care what was in my purse, he didn’t care where my keys were to my vehicle,” she said. “He wanted me. He had handcuffs, he came prepared to take someone.”

“The safety of our employees and customers is a top priority, and we will work with local police as they investigate this issue,” read a statement from Comcast. Comcast is the parent Company of NBC Universal, which owns NBC 4.